University looking more closely at lawsuit

Two months after the University was named as a defendant in a suit filed by a female member of the Class of 2008 who claims to have been sexually assaulted at Tiger Inn more than two years ago, it is now re-evaluating its role in the case, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said.

The lawsuit, filed in early February 2008, alleges that the woman was sexually assaulted at TI on the night of Bicker pickups on Feb. 10, 2006. Though the alleged assault was investigated by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s office shortly after the incident was reported, no charges were filed.

The lawsuit names several defendants, including a male member of the Class of 2007 who is accused of perpetrating the sexual assault, the University, TI, the club’s graduate board, as well as current and former officers of the club. The lawsuit also claims TI violated state anti-hazing statutes in its bicker and pickup night activities.

The University’s lawyers had originally believed that the case is “essentially against Tiger Inn, which is an independent eating club, and the university was likely named to facilitate gathering of discovery (evidence) by the plaintiff’s attorney,” Cliatt said in a statement to the Times of Trenton on March 5.

After recent articles in the Trenton Times and The Daily Princetonian reported the complainant’s belief that the University behaved in a negligent manner and is therefore partly to blame for the alleged sexual assault against the plaintiff, however, the University is re-evaluating its understanding of the case, Cliatt said.

“Our attorneys pretty much indicated to us that this is simply a case against the Tiger Inn, not the University, and that is primarily how we’ve been viewing the case so far,” Cliatt explained, but added that “recent news reports ... provided an initial opportunity for the University to hear indirectly from the plaintiff’s lawyer and ... shed some light on the direction that the attorney for the plaintiff is going.”

The plaintiff is seeking general, punitive and compensatory damages as well as compensation for attorney’s fees and court costs from its defendants, though the nature of the damages asked for varies for each party named.

Allegations of negligence

The lawsuit charges that the University was negligent not just for letting TI serve alcohol to underage students but also for allowing the club to serve alcohol in dangerous quantities.

The University also “advertised, provided information, and encouraged the participation of its students in Tiger Inn, and other eating clubs, in spite of its knowledge of the hazards, risks of intoxication, risk of harm, risks of sexual assaults occurring therein,” according to the complaint.

Cliatt said it was too soon for her to comment on or speculate about the University’s response to the suit since it is still in the very early stages of investigating the claims made in the complaint.

The plaintiff’s lawyer, Craig Hubert, said in an interview that the University failed to regulate TI by means of administrative and legal actions even though it had sufficient prior knowledge of dangerous behavior at the club to warrant such actions.

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"There have been many remedies ... available to the University [to prevent misconduct at TI],” Hubert said. “The extent to which they have or have not pursued these remedies is what will be investigated as part of this case.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the University failed to enforce its code of student conduct and discipline and failed to provide proper safety measures on University grounds and on TI property.

“The University permitted the Tiger Inn to use their e-mail system and allowed the club members to come into the dormitories to physically recruit members,” Hubert said.

Cliatt declined to comment on the University’s policy for regulating the eating clubs because of the context of the current case, she said, adding that she was, of yet, unsure what the University’s response to the complaint would be.

In the past, however, the University has maintained that the eating clubs are regulated not by the University but instead by their student members and trustees.

There have been no similar lawsuits filed against the University in recent years because of incidents at the eating clubs, Cliatt said. She cited the discrimination suit brought by Sally Frank ’80 against several eating clubs for their refusal to admit women during a period that lasted from the late 1970s to the early 1990s as the most recent case in which the University was named as a defendant in a case arising out of the actions of eating clubs.

Change of heart?

While the University is still determining how to respond to the lawsuit, the alumnus accused of sexually assaulting the plaintiff denies the charges brought against him. His name is being withheld because no criminal charges have been filed against him.

He said he first saw the complaint on March 28, 2008, almost two months after it had been filed. The filing date of Feb. 8, 2008, fell only two days before the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations for civil complaints. The alleged assault occurred on Feb. 10, 2006.

In the two years since the incident, the plaintiff has completely changed her position on the incident, the alumnus said.

“When Princeton was attempting to determine if any wrongdoing had occurred, the plaintiff voluntarily sought out the administration and successfully convinced them that no wrongdoing had occurred,” he said in an e-mail.

TI Graduate Board chair Hap Cooper ’82, who was also named in the suit, confirmed in an e-mail that that the investigation by the police and the University found no evidence of wrongdoing. Though he has “no personal knowledge of the specifics” of the lawsuit, Cooper said that “at the time, the individuals involved expressed a desire to keep matters private, and the club respected their wishes.”

“It’s unfortunate that two years later, this private matter is being tried in the press and in the courts,” he added.

The accused alumnus feels that there is an ulterior financial motive for filing the suit. “Why she did a complete 180 degree reversal two years later I cannot say,” he said. “I have to think that the suit is just an attempt to extort money from Princeton University and Tiger Inn.”

His attorney, Paul Brickfield, said that he believes the complaint was purely about securing large sums of money.

“What [Hubert] is seeking in this lawsuit is money, and in this business you’re always looking for deep pockets,” Brickfield said, explaining that naming the University in the suit opens up the possibility of large damages. “We’re not paying anything, I can tell you that.”

Hubert, however, said the suit was not just about money, but also about making TI and the University safer places for students like his client.

“There needs to be some type of check against the unbridled service of alcohol to minors as well as the excesses that occur at the Tiger Inn whether you’re a minor or an adult,” Hubert said.

“On the night of the assault, my client had been encouraged to drink as part of the hazing or bicker process to the point that she did not have the capacity to appreciate what was going on, and she certainly did not have the capacity to consent to any type of sexual contact,” he said.

As a result of the alleged assault, the plaintiff was “caused to suffer and sustain severe and disabling emotional and physical injuries and insult and has been and will in the future be caused to obtain medical treatment,” the lawsuit states.

The alumnus denied having committed any sexual assault and called the suit “absurdly frivolous,” adding that it was doing great physical, emotional, financial and professional damage to him.

“I just want the plaintiff to understand how much this suit is hurting me,” he said in an e-mail. “I hope that eventually she will decide that any potential profit is not worth putting an entirely innocent human being through such anguish.”

Tiger Inn’s legal woes

This complaint marks the second time TI has been faced with a legal battle this academic year. In October 2007, TI, along with Cottage Club and Cloister Inn, was charged with serving alcohol to minors and maintaining a nuisance. In late November, the charges against Cloister and Cottage were dropped, and TI was cleared of the charge of maintaining a nuisance in December. A judge ruled that the pending charge of serving alcohol to a minor would also be dropped if the club were not convicted of alcohol-related charges before June 2. The club stopped serving alcohol for the entire month of January as a result of the ruling.

At the time of the decision, then-club president Chris Merrick ’08 said he was pleased with the outcome and cited several changes that have been made to the club’s alcohol policy since the alleged assault in 2006, when the club also went dry for two months.

"Over the past two years Tiger Inn has instituted a number of new policies to ensure the safety of our members and guests, and we will continue making strides in this direction,” Merrick said in January of this year.

Many claims made in the lawsuit focus on the club’s failure to regulate alcohol consumption on its premises, saying that TI “failed to obtain proof of age from plaintiff ... an underage person and served her alcoholic beverages” even though members of the club observed that she was intoxicated.

These were the results of misguided and ineffective alcohol policies at TI and the University in general, the complaint states, alleging that the problem is that the clubs “relied upon unpaid, untrained, underage, inexperienced, at times intoxicated university students to make ... decisions far beyond their experience, training, and understanding.”

The legal crackdown on underage and dangerous drinking has not gone unnoticed on Prospect Avenue.

In an e-mail sent out this weekend to members of the Cloister Inn, club president John Lamonaca ’09 said that the eating clubs had agreed to be members only for the upcoming pre-frosh weekends.

In the past, Lamonaca said, the clubs have stopped serving alcohol for that weekend, but there are two such weekends this year. “No one wants to be off [tap] two weekends in a row obviously,” he said.

“Many have read about the legal problems at TI, this is an extremely dangerous time for the clubs because people are trigger happy with the lawsuits,” Lamonaca said. “We are NOT putting ourselves in the position of having a high school kid face down on our front lawn because we would be dead.”